Useful organic polymers, such as polyethylenes, polyesters and polymethacrylates are not capable of intrinsically conducting electricity. Electrical conductivity in these instances is achieved by either coating the polymer with an intrinsically conductive material, e.g. a metal film or powdered graphite, or by incorporating a powdered metal or grahite as an admixture or composite, e.g. suspending a sufficient quantity of powdered graphite in the monomer vehicle prior to polymerization. In these instances, the conductivity depends on the mechanical connections of contiguous, conductive particles in numerous pathways or in the continuity of a conductive film. In these types of admixtures, the electricity is conveyed by movement of electrons in or on the surface of the conductive particles or films, and not in the polymer.
Later, synthetic compounds were developed which mimicked the molecular orbital structures of graphite materials. An example of such a polymer is the polytetracyanoethylenes. Conduction in these graphitic-like structures depends on electron movement through the overlapping "pi" molecular orbitals. In all of these synthetic compounds which mimic the molecular orbital structures of the graphitic materials, electrical conduction is by electron movement within the material.
The polymer of the present invention entails a polymer that does not conduct electricity by means of electron movement, but by ion transport as opposed to the polymers of the prior art.